NorCal Garden Musings and Know-How

Month: April 2008

Last night, my remote thermometer says it got down to 26° (actually it was this morning at 6:30 that was the coldest). I’m concerned about my cherry and nectarine blossoms. Mostly, it’s the cherries that concern me, because not many of the nectarine blossoms have opened yet. I’ll keep an eye on them, but I […]

I just have to make quick mention of this; I’ve seen this before and meant to post about it, but someone’s comment about planting a tree on their neighbor’s lot made me think about it again. It’s called guerrilla gardening, and there’s a great website about it from England at www.guerrillagardening.org. Especially read the post […]

This is my first year trying winter sowing (see my description here), and some of the seeds have sprouted, though I have 12 containers out and only four have shown signs of life so far. Here are my results so far: At top left is Alyssum ‘Oriental Nights.’ Top right is Lychnis ‘Rose Campion.’ Bottom […]

My cherries and the nectarine tree are just starting to bloom, with the cherries (at left) opening a little quicker. The nectarine (below) has quite attractive pink blossoms, and you can see they’re just getting ready to open. The apple trees aren’t quite as close to blooming, and the crabapples have a little ways to […]

At left is my Forsythia shrub this week. It’s not doing as well as in past years. I don’t know if it’s because of our unusually cold winter/spring or if I didn’t give it enough water or fertilizer last year. I don’t think I’ve given it fertilizer since maybe 2006. I’ll have to change that […]

Hey, I just found a good resource on raspberry pruning in response to a conversation with a friend about his berries. I think it provides a good description of how to prune the different types (once-bearing versus “everbearing” types), because the two types require significantly different treatment. Here’s the link. It seems a little complicated […]

I “oiled” my fruit trees and some of my roses last Saturday. By “oiled” I mean that I sprayed dormant oil all over the trunks and branches to kill overwintering insect eggs and things. I believe it kills some diseases, too, like fungal spores. The oil I used was Volck Oil Spray from Ortho. It’s […]